Gallery Samples Stories of our Ancestors | Page 30

Ball was a beautiful fairy tale event, and then she sang to me until I fell asleep. Linda was a
lovely person all her life.
‘On another occasion I was also standing in my cot and my parents were in their double bed.
Suddenly a rat ran over Dad’s foot and he kicked it up off him where it hit the ceiling then
landed very accurately in the water jug! My distress at the fate of the poor rat sent me into
screams for its rescue! I still don’t know whether it was rescued but my crying was enough to
make someone do something.
‘The next momentous occasion in my life was when I woke one morning to find a baby in my
parent’s bed! I was now 2 ½ and had suddenly become big sister to Gordon. I adored this
beautiful black-haired baby.’
Little did Ruby know then that she was forever going to be the eldest child and the more babies
there came, the more her responsibilities would grow and the less time or concern there would
ever again be for her.
There is a lovely story that Ruby told of brother, Gordon, when he was about six and she eight:
‘It was Christmas and I had taken Gordon up town to stare once again in the Toy Shop window.
I was transfixed by a beautiful doll and couldn’t get enough of seeing and longing for her.
Gordon had eyes only for a particular red Fire Engine that he’d been saving up for, for a long
time. Eventually he had managed to get just enough for the longed-for Fire Engine.
He wanted to go into the shop all by himself, so I turned away and waited at the nex t shop until
he came out wearing an enormous grin and holding a brown paper-wrapped parcel.
“Did you get it?” I asked, almost as excited as he.
“Here it is, Ruby. I want you to open it first!”
I opened the parcel for him and there lying in the folds of brown paper was not the Fire Engine
but my beautiful doll. “It’s for you, Ruby” he smiled. “I’ll get the Fire Engine next year!”
Then he showed me that he had three pennies left. “Let’s buy some sweets now” he said. “We’ll
get one piece of coconut ice for you, one chocolate for me and one for Mommy.”
By this time, there were now two more babies at home: Thalma and Lorentz. Thalma was
always called Tilly but the teacher put a stop to that when she started school, saying that
Thalma was a much prettier name.
Toys for Christmas were not an option. Perhaps there would be something to wear and some
tiny little surprises along with nuts and maybe a fruit in the Christmas stocking, never anything
as wonderful as a doll or a red fire engine.
Ruby tells a memory of her Mother driving her and Gordon and baby Tilly in a horse and trap
to a neighbouring farm in the Riebeck East days. It seemed a very long way that they travelled
on winding farm tracks, through deserted countryside. Ida was apparently fearless and spent
much of her time taking care of the farm on her own. She seemed to have lived there mostly
with the three children before they started school
Picnics were a great form of entertainment but living in ostrich country sometimes made a
picnic hazardous. ‘On one occasion, having unloaded the trap and divided the spoils from
Mother’s kitchen, we began to run round playing, in the supposed care of a young Black Nanny.
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